Wracked with angst over the fate of our beloved and horribly misgoverned Republic, the DiploMad returns to do battle on the world wide web, swearing death to political correctness, and pulling no punches.

Friday, June 24, 2016

Brexit: Liberty Wins!

So many thoughts on Brexit and what it means, it will be hard to keep this post short and sweet.

First, the BBC. What was that all about? The sort of idiots who believed everything Ben Rhodes said about the Iran deal, or what Obama said about Obamacare, or Hillary said about anything and everything, must have cousins who run the BBC. That once venerable institution, once the world's reporting gold standard, is but a hack leftist/establishment/in-house organ with horrifically biased anti-"Leave" reporting and commentary. I, of course, knew "Leave" would win when the BBC kept saying the issue was "too close to call." If the Brexit vote has internal consequences, I hope one is the complete gutting of the BBC.

Last April, I wrote a few thoughts on Brexit. The gist of those was that the "Remain" side was making a mistake with the heavy use of (often bogus) economic stats. I saw the economic argument as basically a wash, and that,

the force driving the pro-Brexit movement is not solely or even mostly about economics, or finance, or currency exchange rates. It is about something much, much more important. It is about reclaiming the soul of Britain; preserving and restoring that which made Britain, notably England, one of the world's greatest countries, a nation of stunning consequence. It is about deciding whether the great British traditions and innovations that have made our modern world are worth saving or should be discarded. <...> The same people who so strongly support Britain's membership in the EU seem the same who oppose halting the foreign invasion. Now we see the Muslim hordes gathering just across the channel, champing at the bit to get over and enjoy the land of "the white dudes," before they destroy it, to do what Hitler could never. <...> [W]hat's driving the anti-EU movement in Britain is the need to save the country, or what's left of it. Perhaps without the EU and its courts and mandates, British common sense can prevail, and the UK be saved, or at least England--and if the Scots want to stay in the EU, they should have another referendum and swap London's "rule" for that of Brussels, that'll teach 'em.

I think that analysis stands.

If you look at how the vote was spread across the UK, you can see that in England and Wales working and middle class areas most strongly favored "Leave." London, with its hordes of immigrants, low information students, "intellectual elites," and Euro-trash bankers, voted "Remain." Scotland, well, Scotland was Scotland; still not over Charles II, Scottish voters went with Continental Europe rather than with England. England and Wales carried the day for Brexit. We will see renewed calls for Scottish independence, and maybe for some sort of new arrangement between pro-EU Northern Ireland and pro-EU Ireland. All possible. None of it negates the blow struck for freedom and common sense by English and Welsh voters. If Scotland wants to go join a dying EU, let 'em. Let's see how they like Sharia law.

Back in May 2013, when discussing the right of national defense, I noted re Britain,

It seems that perhaps, perhaps, perhaps you can only push the English tribe so far. We perhaps are seeing the stirrings of a "backlash," in others words, of a demand that those who live in England, and enjoy its freedoms and benefits, comply with English law and tradition, or get voted and booted off the island. <...> [I]t appears, it seems, just maybe--the British, and the English, in particular, have begun to reach their limit. We see, for example, the rise of the UKIP--somewhat similar to the Tea Party movement here in the US--calling foul on the EU and its socialist/totalitarian pretensions and challenging the increasingly ossified Tory party to stand up for Britain.

I think that analysis also still holds. I would note that PM Cameron, the ossified leader of the ossified Tories, has announced his resignation in the wake of the defeat of the "Remain" campaign which he so ineptly championed with that mixture of arrogance and condescension one expects from an establishment politician. Good riddance.

As we see here in the USA, our political and intellectual betters do not want to deal with the real issues. They cannot bring themselves to see value in our culture and beliefs, and the need to defend them. Last May, I wrote,

Western civilization also has the right of "national defense," at least as much as does a tribe in the Amazon or on Papua. Just as the Japanese have the right to exclude whomever they wish from Japan--try immigrating there--so do the citizens of Australia, the UK, Canada, Israel, the US, etc. As I have said so many times that I am becoming a boring old hack, believing in the values of Western civilization does not mean that we have to write a suicide note for that civilization. We, for example, do not have to acquiesce to the jihadist invasion now underway in Europe solely because we believe in such human rights as religious tolerance. I repeat, the Magna Carta and the Constitution are not suicide pacts.

That holds, too.

We owe a debt of gratitude to Nigel Farage, who more than anybody else (even you, Boris) waged the battle against the EU. He fought incredible odds, underwent an unrelenting savaging by the establishment, and stuck to his guns even in the darkest days. He and others now need to watch out for the classic tricks of the progressive establishment to try to nullify the voters' will with legal battles and endless negotiations.

The international consequences?

We will see some turmoil in markets; investors don't like change, but that will sort itself out. Brexit should send a shiver down the spines of entrenched bureaucrats everywhere. Here in the States it will prove a plus for the Trump campaign--he, after all, endorsed Brexit, and understood what drove it. That, of course, in marked contrast to Obama and Clinton.

The rest of the EU? Third strike and you're out: Greece, Islamic invasion, and Brexit.

We could and will see other countries begin to look for the exit path--e.g., Netherlands--and that will be bad news for the euro and so much else that has been built up around the monstrous "European Project" over the past few decades. Eastern Europe must be casting an even more nervous eye towards Russia, and the Germans and the French must question the role their leaders have played in the EU disaster. Lots of parts in motion right now. NATO? Potentially more important than ever.

31 comments:

Hold on a minute! This was not a united England giving the finger(s) to Brussels. This was a very narrow win by one group of English punters over another group of English punters -- 52/48. And on a very serious topic, where the losers are unlikely to accept defeat.

Rather, what we are seeing here is the opening shots in the next English Civil War between two fairly evenly balanced sides. How will it end? Who can say -- maybe with the independent City State of London remaining in the EU while the rest of England stumbles outside in confusion.

To paraphrase Churchill, this is not the end of the beginning; this is the beginning of the beginning.

"This was a very narrow win by one group of English punters over another group of English punters -- 52/48."

I'm not so sure about that. That just looking at "the numbers" suggest its an even split - fails to appreciate what we seem to be looking at which is apparently, the elites (& the young and the too comfortable) out and out dismissive of the sorts of people who do the actual hard work of, "making a country work."

"The rest of England [stumbling] in confusion"?

That I very much doubt.

"Those" are the people who; seventy+ years ago set themselves to the task at hand.

Toys are, and will for some time, be thrown from leftie prams; but to suggest a civil war is patently absurd. There will certainly be attempts to undermine or stop BREXIT using delay, obfuscation, attacks on the validity of the referendum and attempts to get another (much like the refusal to accept the original votes in Ireland) but the problem for the EU is that the outcome will ignite calls and the push for other continental countries to vote and leave the EU, and those will be far greater and more immediate problems for the EU than BREXIT. The EU constantly shows itself be be anti-democratic and doubling down now isn't going to help it at all; it will increase the determination of other countries to leave as well.

And to make good my point; there is now a real push for in/out referenda in France, the Netherlands, Austria, Finland and Hungary.

Merkel is now saying there should be a 'constructive exit' with the UK ending up as an 'associated partner', which probably means preserving trade ties; after all there will be 2.44 billion Euro hole in the EU finances after Britain leaves, and the freeloaders in the EU won't fill it, and Germany will need to keep selling Mercs, BMWs and Porsches to pay for it. Sound like the revolt at home on the continent might make the BREXIT pale in significance.

FN in France is not UKIP. It's somewhat tainted, but it's showing is a passable gauge of patriotism in France. Tentatively, it appears to have displaced the Socialist Party and Les Republicains as the most popular party in France.

Ryan and John Boehner have been less troublesome characters than AM McConnell. One of the pities of recent years is that Mr. Bevin (now Governor of Kentucky) was not quite able to take him out in 2014.

RM Kaus has been making the case that Ryan and his pal Vin Weber are open-borders extremists. I primary win by Ryan's challenger would be another whiff of grapeshot for the Capitol Hill / K Street nexus.

I see that the vote was indeed close and within the margin of error, so the anti-pollster bias here is unwarranted. This actually is somewhat of a verification of the idea that the progressives' power is overstated because the question cut across a lot of constituencies.

That said, notice too that a significant minority is always going to unenthusiastically vote "change nothing." U think that over the long term this is something like a third overall.

So even a short win by the powers of change is more than it seems, and that of the remain sorts is weaker than they appear.

Mad,If you consider the murder of the MP just before the election as giving the "Remains" a big poll boost then the results would have been much better than 52 to 48 if it had not happened.James the Lesser

"I would note that PM Cameron, the ossified leader of the ossified Tories, has announced his resignation in the wake of the defeat of the "Remain" campaign which he so ineptly championed with that mixture of arrogance and condescension one expects from an establishment politician."

I wouldn't call him 'ossified'. He's only 50. I'd call him a careerist ad man type. All of Mrs. Thatcher's successors have been disappointments to one degree or another. Kudos to Ian Duncan Smith and Michael Howard for plumping for Brexit, though. John Major and Wm. Hague played the tool. Hague was particularly repulsive.

Cameron's first employer in the world of British politics has given accounts of his attitudes ca. 1995 and evidently he has for all that time been an ideologue in one respect: Europhilia. I think his resignation is far more graceful than anything BO has ever done. No one bests our feckless leader on the conceits meter.

Scottish particularlism conjoins a resentment of Westminster with a hankering after rule by the sort in Brussels Nigel Farage referred to as a 'damp rag' and 'low grade bank clerk'. Scottish Nationalism is silly.

What I'm hoping happens next is that the countries who can leave with the least fuss start doing so, and that's the ones who abstained from adopting the Euro. Hungary and Poland have sensible patriotic governments.

The next thing I'd like to see happen is a country successfully get out of the Euro. Bank holiday, sort the vault cash into locally printed and minted items and foreign-origin Euro coin and bills, send the foreign origin to the central bank in return for reserves on deposit, stamp the domestically printed bills as a mnemonic device, announce that foreign exchange will be auctioned in quantitative tranches each month which will in turn determine the adjustable currency peg, and open up the banks for business and start trading the new currency at 1-to-1 and let it find its value over about 15 months. The Mediterranean countries would benefit from a devaluation.

That will be handy, in the unlikely event that Putin ends up with naval bases in Scotland and we end up in a shooting war, because the RAF won't have to fly nearly so far to bomb them. Much easier than attacking Russian bases that are actually in Russia.

About Me

W. Lewis Amselem, long time US Foreign Service Officer; now retired; served all over the world and under all sorts of conditions. Convinced the State Department needs to be drastically slashed and reformed so that it will no longer pose a threat to the national interests of the United States.